


cryptic words

by Areiton



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, First Meetings, Lonely Tony Stark, M/M, Not Canon Compliant, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Tony-centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-22
Updated: 2019-01-22
Packaged: 2019-10-14 15:47:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,355
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17511428
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Areiton/pseuds/Areiton
Summary: When he first puts on the suit in that cave, and uses it to walk out--He understands, maybe. Maybe. What that damn sentence scrawled on his shoulder means.





	cryptic words

**Author's Note:**

> Full spoilery warnings at the end

First words. That's what you get--the first words from the one person the universe says is perfect for you. Most people are born with them, or get them shortly after they're born. A tiny percentage of the population gets them years later. 

But  _ everyone _ gets their words. 

By eighteen, Tony started to think maybe that was wrong. By twenty five, he knew it. And by the time he was thirty, he didn't  _ care _ . 

Not about the pitying looks from his endless string of lovers, not about the way the media tacked his Wordless state onto his eccentricities.  Not about the gaping loneliness in his gut and the echoes of his father's voice, telling him no one would ever love him. Not about the lovers who leave him as they find their own soulmates.

He didn't care. 

It hurt less, to not care. 

 

~*~

 

When he's thirty-two, he wakes up and sees messy black scrawled across his shoulder, dipping toward his clavicle and he scrambles to the mirror, almost dumping his bedmate on her ass as he does. 

It's there. 

It's there. 

Jesus fuck. He has a soulmate and it's a  _ baby _ but--he has a soulmate. 

 

~*~

 

It's messy, thin scrawling lines, delicate as spider silk, and--

He blinks.

_ Bite me, tincan.  _

Promising start, really. 

 

~*~

 

When his convoy gets bombed, Tony has a lot of regrets. But the one that rings loudest is,  _ I haven’t met them yet. _

He  _ wants _ that. It’s been three years since his Words appeared, and he hasn’t told anyone but Rhodey, but they’re precious, they’re a promise he holds close when the world is too dark for him to handle. 

He feels the heat of the flames, can smell the blood and gasoline on the air and terror so thick it’s choking and thinks,  _ not yet. Please, not yet.  _

 

~*~

 

He doesn't die. 

As they torture him, he wishes he would. That he  _ could _ . But he doesn't die. And when he's tossed back in his cell, he clings to that cryptic line on his shoulder, clings to it like a promise. 

 

~*~

 

It's not a promise. Plenty of people die without meeting the Soulmate, without ever hearing their Words. 

But Tony lived thirty two years without his and he refuses to die like this, refuses to let the words scrawled on his five year old Mate's skin turn white. 

He lives because for once in his life, he has something he  _ has _ to live for.

 

~*~

 

When he first puts on the suit in that cave, and uses it to walk out--

He understands, maybe. Maybe. What that damn sentence scrawled on his shoulder means. 

 

~*~

 

He builds more. Sometimes, when he’s working on a new suit, and Pepper is watching him with apprehensive caution, when Rhodey looks at him in quiet sympathy--he doesn’t know if he’s building the suit because he needs to for Stark Industries and the world--or if he’s doing it because if he does, if he builds enough suits, and walks in front of enough people, maybe one day, someone will shout at him and he won’t be so goddamn lonely. 

 

~*~

 

It doesn’t happen. It never happens. He tries to believe that it’s just because his soulmate is young--god so young, so impossible--tries to find something that means  _ anything _ with Pepper. The world gets threatened, again and again, and he...he doesn’t stop  _ hoping _ , so much as he becomes resigned to it. 

He’s forty eight, and has lived with his soulmark for sixteen years, lived without one for most of his life, and living without a soulmate might be lonely--but it’s all he’s ever known. 

 

~*~

 

Tony sees the kid flipping his way through narrow streets and impossibly tall buildings on his way to a meeting Pepper will be furious if he misses. 

He sees the kid, an instant before he cuts through the red and blue blur’s arc, and tangles himself up in sticky thin wire. 

The kid shrieks, plunging as his--jesus this is  _ webbing-- _ gets cut, and Tony curses as he plunges after him, catching him by the ankle as the kid shoots that webbing and flings himself up and away from Tony.

“Are you an idiot or do you have a death wish?” he bursts out, frustrated. 

The kid jerks on his web, head twisting to stare at Tony and then-- 

“Bite me, tincan!” 

Tony’s heart does this weird thing that makes FRIDAY snap his name in alarm, and he loses a good fifteen feet of altitude and when he looks around--

The kid is gone. 

 

~*~

 

He’s late for his meeting, and his hands are shaking so bad throughout it that Pepper cuts it short and drags him to her office, shoving a cup of juice in his hand while she peers at him worriedly. “Hey. Talk to me, Tony.” 

“I found him,” he says, lips numb. “I--Pepper, I found him.” 

She’s staring at him, her eyes wide and soft and he can’t stop  _ shaking _ . “Where is he?” she asks, gently, and he thinks about it again, that split second exchange in the air above New York. 

Of the biting anger and the impossibly young voice snarling at him. 

“He took off. God--Pep, I have no idea who he is.” 

 

~*~

 

The thing is--he does know. He knows who Spiderman is because he’s been keeping tabs on the kid. A masked vigilante, even one that likes helping little old ladies cross the street and rescue stray cats, in his city, in the shadow of his tower, of  _ course _ Tony was keeping tabs on him. 

He knows exactly who and where to find his soulmate. 

 

~*~ 

 

“When are you going to meet him?” Pepper asks, one day almost a month later. Tony shrugs. There’s been time. He had one quick trip to MIT for a speech, one run to a UN meeting that turned into a shit show that he was able to get away from--if Cap and his soulmate wanted to go on the run, international law protected Steve from turning on Bucky, and he wasn’t going to get in their way. It wouldn’t do any good and he had other things on his mind. 

“Why haven’t you brought him here?” she asks, gently. 

“He’s a kid, Pepper,” he says, helplessly, like that is enough. 

Unfortunately, it is.

 

~*~

 

The tower is dark, when he lands on the balcony. The remaining Avengers are in the compound upstate and the tower is still his, but it’s just a matter of time before they sell it. But it’s  _ his _ and the alarms sounded, routed directly to him--and here he is. Standing on a dark balcony, staring at a kid. 

Peter Parker, pale and beautiful, with big brown eyes and messy curls and a tight lean body under his suit--he’s wearing the new one, the one he’d had delivered last week. 

“You didn’t come after me,” Peter says, softly, his voice high and sweet and Tony steps out of the suit, onto the balcony and closer to him. “I--I know--I’m not what you want--b-b-but,--” 

Tony growls and reaches out, because he fucked up, he fucked up he got it wrong, and this kid, he’s---

He’s in Tony’s arms, coming to rest against his chest with a choked off little noise, almost of relief, and all the tension Tony didn’t know he’d been carrying just...melts. 

Drops away like cut strings. 

“Kid,” Tony whispers into soft soft curls. “You’re the _only_ thing I want.” 

Peter makes a quiet, hurt noise against him and Tony’s arms tighten around him. 

He doesn’t ever want to let go, doesn’t want to ever not feel the solid weight of his boy in his arms, doesn’t want to live without the warmth of Peter pressed against his chest. 

He has no idea how he lived this long without it, but there are words. Three impossible first words that got shouted at him over the streets of Queens, that kept him alive in the desert and all the long years since. 

He holds his boy and for the first time in his life, he doesn’t feel alone. 

**Author's Note:**

> So Peter _underage in this but two things. 1. Soulmates trump age and 2. Tony doesn't actually initiate anything. I'm leaving it up to reader's imagination but my thought is this Tony would give Peter time and space to explore the relationship before they fall into bed. Let him grow up some._


End file.
